Only the heart matters
by zel-chan
Summary: Two years after the end of the game, Yuri finds himself journeying with an unexpected companion. Can they manage it through without stomping on each other's lines? Maybe they'll find interesting facts about the other...
1. Chapter 1

Only the heart matters

**A.N.:** I wanted to give Duke & Yuri a little love since they don't seem to receive any lol!

It's a short fic about Duke and Yuri while they found themselves alone after the end of the game. *SPOILERS AHEAD*

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

* * *

It had been two years since the end of the Adephagos, Brave Vesperia was up and running, so was the Empire with Flynn as a commandant and Ioder as the Emperor. The alliance between Estellis the Vice-emperor and Brave Vesperia one of the master guilds made negotiations between the guilds and the Empire relatively easy. Most of them had found their own purposes and obligations: Karol as a busy guild's boss, Rita as an inventor, Raven helping both knights and guilds without really keeping attaches anywhere and Judith was going from doing guild's jobs, training newbie's, and exploring the world.

Yuri himself had found his own style of living. One that would rudely be called by a certain captain Leblanc as vagabonding… Well, it was really going from one barely civilized place to another. However, without really intending to share his aimless wandering with anyone, he had found the company of one whose journey was alike his: Duke.

It was a wonder for both men how they had ended up tagging along with one another. It had begun with crossing paths a little too often, had ended with an aimless line, like: "If we're just going to end up at the same place. How about we get there through the same path?". And so they had, the mysterious reasons that had pushed the white haired swordsman to agree with the proposal might forever remain unknown to the long haired warrior.

Yuri mused over these facts; a full year had passed since that decision had been made. A full year since he last saw any of his other friends. He wondered how they would react if they knew he had been living with their once enemy for a year. There was also the fact that the two of them were so very far apart, in almost every possible sense of the word. The swordsman tried to picture the face of his childhood friend if he were to casually tell him about that year's events.

"May I ask: why does my presence here seems to amuse you?" The white haired man asked as the raven one realized he had allowed a very out-of-place smirk to appear while he had been staring at his companion.

"Heh, just thinking about something veeeeeery funny!" he tried to explain as the mental simulation of Flynn's reaction started to make him want to laugh uncontrollably.

Duke gave him a look, clearly meaning to ask about the other's sanity; fortunately the black haired swordsman managed to repress his need to roll on the ground while laughing and got his normal composure back.

Well… that was before he noticed just how silly his companion looked; as the Great War hero had decided to cook with an apron of sorts on him: now he absolutely had to find a way to show this to his friends the next time he crossed paths with them.

"S-sorry! But I just can't!" he cried as he couldn't hold the laugh anymore when Duke sent him his trademark 'angry glare' while in the frilly thing.

It's not like he had expected _that_, when he had complained that the white haired man had denied touching the 'cooking department' since the beginning of their journey together. It wasn't like he truly reprimanded the other male either. The other just didn't seem to realize that any normally constituted human being needed to eat, sleep and take breaks. Yuri was pretty sure that at the beginning of their little adventure (and maybe even now), the ex-knight might have never noticed it if he had stopped cooking, even if it meant not feeding him for days… A strange phenomenon since the white haired male had much more apatite than the raven haired warrior might have given him credit for.

"I really never expected you to have something so fancy in your baggage…" he added while pointing at the hilarious apron.

"It was… a gift…" he trailed off, hoping that this explanation would shut his companion up.

"A- No Way? Just what king of person was that friend of yours anyway?" Yuri asked disbelief apparent.

"Elucifur… was very intrigued by human's customs and… interests… He also appreciated associating with the oddest kind of people…" he admitted as he recalled suffering his friend's sparkling eyes each time that woman knight had the bright idea of telling the Entelexeia about some stupid and highly arranged fact of the human's life…

"Yeah, I can see that." The dark haired man acknowledged as he looked intently at the other while totally missing his point.

Duke sighed as he decided to end the conversation by filling the bowls with the curry he had just made.

"Heh! Doesn't look so bad!" Yuri said as he eagerly took a bite of the mixture, only to freeze once the spoon was in his mouth.

"Is something the matter?" Duke asked as his traveling companion didn't seem to make any sort of move even after a minute or so, he himself hadn't touched his food, too taken by the strange reaction.

Carefully nearing the other's prone form, the white haired Dein Nomos' wielder poked at the other's shoulder with his index finger while crouching to be about the same height as the other. He watched with mild interest as Yuri regained consciousness again, only to throw the bowl he was still holding as far as he could into the dense vegetation surrounding them.

"W-what the heck did you put into that _thing_?" he accusingly pointed the older man who had not moved from his crouched position next to him.

"Hmmm… Maybe such a reaction should have been expected since it was my first time at food making…" he pondered as he took the wise decision to _not touch _his own bowl of "food".

"WHAT? How the hell did you survive for 11 years without food?" Yuri disbelievingly asked the other. He could hardly picture the man wearing an apron and making food in the middle of a forest, sure. But he couldn't just think that the man had lived without eating at all. And he certainly didn't seem like the type who would take 'take-outs' at someplace or another… Maybe he let his monster friends do the cooking for him, or Khroma…

"I did not live 'without eating'; I merely suggested that I did not 'make food'. My main nourishment came from the raw ingredients my surroundings provided me…" he explained.

"…I see… I guess that makes sense… But even so… Didn't you,… like,… taste this?" Yuri asked for yet another unexplainable fact.

"What point is there in tasting the food to make it to your liking? All beings have different likes and dislikes; I made the food for you as well: how could I know what balance and spices would best suit you? Wouldn't it be more equal to do this objectively?" he asked back, making Yuri believe that the man was totally ignorant of the little thing called 'common sense' and/or that he was way too deep in everything he was doing.

"…forget it, I'll just stick to the cooking from now on…" apparently satisfied with his answer, the white haired male went back to his own side of the camp. Though Yuri seemed to have remained oblivious to the fact that the taller man had just implied that it was useless to make food to respond to his own liking if it didn't respond to Yuri's…

* * *

"Yuri Lowell." The white haired male called out to his travelling companion.

That tone was one that the swordsman had labeled as the 'I'm going to make your life miserable by asking you something in a language that you don't seem to comprehend' tone. The man seemed to like doing so in the oddest times, like he had no conscience of the times and places. He could randomly ask if the man realized how odd his decision to save humanity looked like as they travelled away from civilization, right after or before asking if Yuri hadn't forgotten to retrieve his towel from whichever branch it had been drying on… Such questions could also randomly appear whenever they were in battle against a powerful monster that had stupidly thought he could use them as a snack, or just really at anytime of the day… or night. At the beginning, Yuri had freaked out at the guy's randomness, but now he was mostly used to it; even now, when he was obviously trying to enjoy a shower under a natural waterfall.

At least, he knew that he had no need to push the other to get going, since he long learned that he would ask his question even if Yuri tried throwing something at him to get him to stop.

"You are always so confident… Has there been any time when words seemed to weight you down? Did you ever feel fear at speaking your own mind out?" he asked as he intently watched his companions back.

"It depends… but sure. Like now: I really don't feel like having a deep conversation and I would really like to tell you to fuck off in the rudest possible way… but I know that it would be useless so I'm just going to drop it…" he answered, knowing that the other would remain unsatisfied and probably go on bugging him until he had a straight answer; but he had learned to appreciate the other's deep, soothing voice; so he didn't really mind being bothered some more. He contemplated on his own uncharacteristic comportment as he waited for an answer while massaging his scalp with a sweet smelling shampoo.

"I see…" the white haired man sighed, surprising Yuri as this outcome was relatively out of character to him.

"Really now? Care to 'enlighten' me?" he asked as the silence finally got the better of him.

"Sometimes… I see you, and words seem like they are too heavy for me to let them out. How odd: it's like, for the first time in a long while, I apprehended the outcome that meaningless words might cause." He finally said as he admired the soap run along the curves of the other's body as he rinsed his hair.

"You? Too scared for words? My… Maybe the world _did_ get destroyed while we weren't looking." He answered as he tried to get rid of all the bubbles in his hair through the waterfall. "But you know. When words don't come out, you can still act!" the raven haired swordsman said as he turned to the other: he liked to think that actions were better than words and that sometimes all you needed was to let it all out with your fists.

"Maybe…" Duke pondered on those words as Yuri interpreted his thoughts.

"Yeah, so… Don't sweat it: it's not like I couldn't handle you! But if you plan on taking me on, you'll still need to be prepared for pay back time!" he confidently told the other. He himself wouldn't mind a little heated battle against the hero of the Great War every now and then.

"Hmmm… Maybe I should indeed have to consider this a possibility…" the other answered before making his way back to their camp, leaving a confused and very naked Yuri behind.

"What… possibility?"

* * *

**A.N.:** Here, that was short. But I suddenly got the urge to write about Duke: the man's way of speaking is simply fascinating! There should definitely be more love for Duke!

Duke: Love? Such triviality is not needed by my person.

Yuri: Translation: I'm too cool and sexy for you people!

Duke: There is no need to translate my speech.

Yuri: Whatever you say…

**A.N.:** Right… Anyway, I wonder if I should make another chapter or something, but I lack a clue or something so if anyone got ideas like a word or light plot for those two please tell me ^^

Duke: Why need more of these useless ramblings? Do you not usually plan on making longer tales?

Yuri: She does. But now she decided to get a little bit of advance with the chapters before trying to post anything. Besides there are still exams going!

**A.N.:** It all your fault if I can't concentrate on them fully though!

Yuri: Yeah, right… You go and accuse us, it's not gonna change the facts.

**A.N.:** Argh! I'm going to write something where you suffer so _much_ that you'll regret ever speaking back at me!

Duke: Now seems like a good opportunity for me to remain calm and unconcerned by human's trivial matters…

Yuri: Yeah… You do that…

Duke: I will pray for the peace of your soul then.

Yuri: I'm not dead yet!

Duke: …_yet._

Yuri: Keyword being here I suppose…

Duke: And although this is remotely pointless to I, the comments seems to be highly appreciated.


	2. Sugar High

**A.N.:** moar love for these two XD! *Sugar high!* mode is ON!

_Note to self:_ snickering behind you laptop for too long can make people think you're crazy and/or potentially dangerous… So, no making fics while surrounded by people, even if they don't understand a word of English (it might be even worse)! I personally think that, to my friends and family, understanding/writing/reading English on a regular basis is the proof of a troubled mind (Maybe there was a time when I was like that too…)!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my own poor imagination!

* * *

There were those times when Duke wondered if his road companion was aware of his oddness (to his eyes at least: it IS Duke we're talking about). His obvious liking to food containing extraordinary high amounts of sugar was one of those oddities.

Like now, they had made their way to the nearest city to buy necessities. Among those apparently indispensable things that the youth absolutely had to buy, in this heated day of summer, had been one vanilla and chocolate ice cream.

The white haired man was mesmerized at the black haired swordsman's way of eating the simple ice cream cone. For the occasion, the other had even put his hair back in a loose ponytail.

The younger man complained suddenly as he realized that the chocolate was leaking from the bottom of the cone. Duke unconsciously leaned over, as the other rolled his tongue around the narrow base of the cone. After sucking out as much of the addictive substance as needed, the vanilla on top started to melt and roll down. He quickly caught the substance by liking the pearls of sweetness along the cone.

The white haired male's eyebrow started to twitch uncontrollably as Yuri switched from one end of the cone to another, as he tried to have his dessert last as long as he could. Duke observed the play and noted that the youth avoided touching the cone yet. The food seemed to disappear way too slowly to his own liking too.

As the youth made his way to the top of the cone once again, Duke decided that he would not take anymore of this.

Moving from his spot he approached the unsuspecting black haired male. Yuri had almost managed it to the top of his ice cream as his companion suddenly and rudely took his left arm, the one holding the cone, and bit off the top of the ice cream in one chop before the black haired warrior's shocked eyes.

He was paralyzed has he saw the white haired man try to cover his mouth with his hand as he swallowed the sugar filled substance. After a long silence had passed, Yuri watched as the inevitable happened: Duke dropped to his knee and held his stomach in a pure show of pain.

"You know… if you wanted some you could have just bought yourself your own…" he said has he dejectedly observed his drastically shortened cone.

"This pain…" the other gasped as his whole body complained as he tried to speak and/or stand up.

"Well, what did you expect? Don't you know you get stomach ache and brain freeze when you eat your ice cream too fast?" he pointed out.

"…" the white haired warrior kept silent as he mentally took note that 'ice cream' was to be forever banned from his very sight, vocabulary and alimentation.

****

At another time, Yuri came back from his bath in the nearby water spot. Only to fall in front of a scene he most definitely did _not _want to face.

Here was Duke, waiting for him, and holding something that, he remembered finding in his luggage not so long ago, well hidden in an inside pocket. Probably something either Estelle or Judith, or both, had thought to give him just to make his life miserable in the future. Future which happened to be right this moment. He slightly wondered why he had not thrown the offending 'joke' very far away the second he had discovered it… He realized that escape was impossible as the other decided to look in his direction right as he was trying to curse the two girls into the next year.

"You better not be telling me that you actually planned to fold my laundry and that by pure coincidence found this?" he tried to joke even if he still did not get how the older man had managed to get a hold of the offending artifact.

The other male raised a delicate eyebrow at the assumption, before understanding the need to explain what he was doing with something that seemed to be of his companion's private business.

"My apologizes. _This_ was sticking out of your personal possessions so I took the liberty to sample it…" he explained.

"Ooookay… Errr- Anyway… I-I'm just going to get to sleep now… And drop _that_!" he said horrified as the other man held the thing in plain sight above his head (think Zelda!).

"I am sorry. I did not plan on damaging your… secret belongings? I was just wondering if that was usual of people of these days to use such _things_? Is this supposed to-" he asked almost innocently.

"STOP! And no no no no no no! It's NOT my "_secret belonging"_!" he cried as the white haired man was pilling misunderstandings over misunderstandings.

"…" Duke watched him with an unreadable expression as he kept silent.

"I-it's… It's- Argh! It's just that stupid _thing_ that was given to me for that _stupid reason_ by that stupid _guy_ and put into my bag by a couple of- of _stupids!_" he said desperate to have the other just _drop it_.

The white haired male looked at him questioningly before coming to an apparent decision. He took a few steps forward, once in Yuri's personal space, he lifted the artifact. Finally, with a determined look, he planted the black bunny ears hair band on the raven haired man's head.

The said man gaped at the action, unable to process what was actually going in the white haired man's head. The Great War hero gave a satisfied nod and took a few steps back to admire the gapping youth.

"So that's why…" he trailed off.

"…" the other couldn't even protest as his brain seemed to have short-circuited with the ears on his head.

"Very interesting." The white haired one went on.

"W-What?" he finally managed to force out as his companion didn't seem to stop his own musings.

"I wondered why this peculiar element seemed to be so unsettling. In situ it actually makes more sense." He truthfully answered.

The black haired swordsman became successively very pale then beet red with shame as he ripped the things from his head. Angrily, he stuck them on his traveling companion's head before making his way to his tent.

"Get unsettled by yourself if you please!" he shot back before escaping whatever questions the other might have.

"hmm…" the other silently mused as he absentmindedly stroked the velvety material of one of the fake ears now stuck on his head.

"Not quite as efficient…"

**Comeonyouknowthatwouldbecute!**

If there one thing that the black haired swordsman would _never_ understand about his traveling companion: it was his strange morning ritual. He himself liked to lie down in bed for a while, pretending to sleep for a few more hours at best, it was during that period that Duke would begin his own activities.

First, since the white haired weirdo had learned of the raven haired one's habit of lying away his life on mornings, he'd wake his companion using the technique Yuri had so called the "pokes of death". It was basically the only way to wake him without throwing the younger male in an angry fit of destruction (Flynn and Estellise had also learned the technique during their respective times with the warrior).

Well, except for the one time when Duke had tried to poke his cheek and had almost lost a digit, when the raven male had bitten the offending finger while still lost in the world of dreams. So, learning from his past failures, the Dein Nomos' wielder now altered from poking his stomach to finger punching his arm, while remaining at a safe distance: where he could actually withdraw quickly enough should his life (or whatever appendage) be at stake…

After making sure that the other had been thoughtfully annoyed to death and sure to wake up, he would enigmatically shuffle through his own bag. For what? He would never know…

Another fact about Duke was that, he was awfully curious! And so Yuri would always sleepily growl as he saw the taller man try to sneak around the place and examine random stuff located in _Yuri's_ personal belongings. There had been a time when he had laughed at the other's antics and merely observed, as the great hero of the war would pull stuff out of his bag to expressionlessly look it over for a few minutes.

He had stopped however, as the man started to get bolder and searched for more interesting items. Such as his kindly given costume from the theatrical guild or the knight's outfit left to him by Flynn who, to Yuri's point of view, had more than hopeless dreams going on in his little blonde head… His white haired companion even had the nerve to ask him to put the clothes on (which of course resulted in a battle where he had claimed a few stands of white hair)!

However, his growls seemed to stop the older man less and less every time, and the black haired swordsman was still too lazy to get up and physically stop him. So he watched warily as Duke ignored him and searched his bag without a care in the world…

Sometimes the man was just so… natural? Maybe oblivious and rude would fit better, but the raven warrior thought that it would put him too close to the kritya kind.

'Damn! Not that! Tch! Even Estelle never managed to find it! If you tell a single word to Flynn, I'm going to bite off something that certainly won't grow back!' he thought angrily as he powerlessly watched as Duke pulled out his little dirty secret: his hidden stack of sweets.

He determinedly got out of bed as the other made a move to take one for himself.

"Hey! Don't touch that!" he roared as he ripped the small transparent bag from the other's grasp.

"…" the white haired male said nothing as his companion's reaction largely out matched the one when his underwear had been scattered around, it really was an unfortunate slip of his hand though.

"No one touches my personal emergency kit!" he explained.

"How does such, items of poor healing capabilities, enter the category reserved for ones used over grave wounds that would need fast treatment?" the Great War hero asked while pulling a hand under his chin as a sign to indicate focus.

"It's still 'emergency kit', and no one but me touches it!" he yelled this time.

"…"

Before the still interrogative face of his companion, he decided to take his baggage and leave camp before the man went too deep into his musings. Duke merely observed the other warrior as he took his personal belongings and left to his next destination.

The white haired swordsman waited still, rooted on his spot, until he was sure the other was out of sight. Only then did he allow himself a silent compliment.

'Mission "Let's move before noon",… done.'

* * *

**A.N.:** Yes, I believe even Duke can have his little piece of fun every once in a while XD. I also changed the border line with words because editing everything on is too much trouble (I didn't need to do this before…)! Edit: that actually made it worse...

Maybe I should think of Yuri's reunion with his friends for another chapter lol.

Yuri: Or think about your upcoming exam instead of having me suffer!

Duke: Hmmm… Maybe I did make a few mistakes in this part though: Lowell seems to especially dislike my attitude…

Yuri: Hell yeah! First you take my ice cream, then you-_you!_ Do THAT! With _THIS_! And last of all you plan on kidnapping my sweets and force me outta bed at EIGHT in the &#ç°%*$£ morning!

Duke: Such foul and trivial language.

Yuri: I could make your ears bleed if you want!

Duke: Though I hardly think that such a feat would be possible by the mere way of foul words… I would be glad if you did not to try to do so…

Yuri: Heh. Not possible hm? *Evil plotting*

**A.N.:** -_-; Well, whatever. I almost wondered if I should have changed the rating because of the innuendoes in the first part… For now I think I should seriously consider going on a sugar diet… Though, that's probably as hopeless as to try to have Yuri do one.


End file.
